Search results for "Centricnemus leucogrammus"
showing 3 items of 3 documents
The Impact of Environmental Conditions on Efficiency of Host Plant DNA Barcoding for Polyphagous Beetles.
2015
Recently, several papers were published dealing with host plant identification for selected species of insects, including beetles. These studies took advantage of the DNA barcoding approach and generally showed that it is possible to identify diet composition from plant DNA present in insect guts. However, none of these studies considered how the impact of environmental conditions affected the likelihood of insect feeding and, therefore, the presence of host plant DNA that could be amplified and sequenced. In the present study, individuals of the polyphagous weevil Centricnemus leucogrammus (Germar, 1824) (Curculionidae: Entiminae) were used to test the hypothesis that harsh environmental c…
Data from: Plant – herbivorous beetle networks: molecular characterization of trophic ecology within a threatened steppic environment
2015
DNA barcoding facilitates many evolutionary and ecological studies, including the examination of the dietary diversity of herbivores. In this study, we present a survey of ecological associations between herbivorous beetles and host plants from seriously threatened European steppic grasslands. We determined host plants for the majority (65%) of steppic leaf beetles (55 species) and weevils (59) known from central Europe using two barcodes (trnL and rbcL) and two sequencing strategies (Sanger for mono/oligophagous species and Illumina for polyphagous taxa). To better understand the ecological associations between steppic beetles and their host plants, we tested the hypothesis that leaf beetl…
Low effective population sizes and limited connectivity inxerothermic beetles: implications for the conservation ofan endangered habita
2014
Fragmentation and isolation may have detrimental effects on the viability of populations. Xerothermic grasslands, which are extra-zonal analogues of steppes, are among Europe's most endangered natural environments. Information about connectivity between the remaining habitat patches is critical for effective conservation planning. However, very little is known about the actual levels of isolation of individual xerothermic patches at the inter-regional and local scale. In this study, 16 microsatellite loci were used to investigate genetic diversity, structuring, effective sizes (Ne), and connectivity among populations of the weevil Centricnemus leucogrammus at various geographic scales. Anal…